Master of Science, Centre of African Studies, School of Social and Political Studies, The University of Edinburgh

PhD, Centre of African Studies, The University of Edinburgh

Research Interests

I have been working in South Africa since 1999 undertaking research on religious organisations and Faith-based Organisations (FBOs). My research focuses on the dialectic relationship between faith organisations, their activities and socio-political action; the production of knowledge around faith, development and the relationship between civil society, society and politics; and the broader scale dynamics of political transformation taking place in South Africa after the end of Apartheid. I have also been involved in a research project looking at the role of Christian churches in Kenya and their role in promoting biotechnology and development. Between 2009 and 2011 I worked on a research project that analysed the role of FBOs in South Africa to support non-citizens during the xenophobic attacks in Spring 2008 and the Churches' critical voice of State intervention. In 2012 I have been awarded a Leverhulme grant to investigate the role of Pentecostal Charismatic Churches in framing the public and political discourse around morality, sexuality and nationhood in Uganda. This was a two-year project that has run between August 2012 and July 2014. I am now writing up a monograph and several articles on the topic.

In the academic year 2014-15 I will convene the postgraduate course: Key Skills in Development Practice that will run in semester 2. This course will provide students with: 1.Skills to critically examine the relationship between development thinking and development practice; 2. Be able to appraise and utilise appropriate practical tools and instruments for a career in the international development field; 3. skills in key areas of development practice such as monitoring and evaluation, writing policy brief, applying for funding etc.

In the following academicy year I will also offer a postgraduate course in Religion and Development. More information to follow.

Global Development Academy

In 2010 I have helped to launch the Global Development Academy and I am currently one of the co-deputy directors of this network.

The Global Development Academy brings together the University’s international legacy of researching and teaching excellence across its three colleges of Humanities and Social Sciences, Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, Science and Engineering. The Academy provides support and a place where students, staff and the broader community involved in development, meet and engage together. For more information click here

Publications

Bompani B (2015) ‘For God and For My Country’: Pentecostal-charismatic Churches and the Framing of a New Political Discourse in Uganda'in van Klinken A & Chitando E (eds) Public Religion and the Politics of Homosexuality in Africa, Surrey: Asghate Publishing, chapter 1 [in press].

Bompani B (2014) ‘Beyond disciplinarity: reflections on the study of Religion in International Development' in Journal of Religion and Theology, vol. 21, pp. 309-333

Bompani B & Smith J (2013) 'Bananas and the Bible: Biotechnology, the Catholic Church and rural development in Kenya' in International Journal of Religion and Society, vol. 4, n.1-2

Bompani B. (2013) "Local religious organisations performing development: Refugees in the Central Methodist Mission in Johannesburg" in Journal of International Development [online version; print version to follow]

Bompani B. (2012) ‘It is not a shelter, it is a church!’ Religious organisations, the public sphere and xenophobia in South Africa' (chapt. 8) in Hopkins P., Kong L. and Olson E. (eds) Religion and place: landscape, politics and piety, Springer, New York.

Bompani B. and Frahm-Arp M. (2010), "Development and Politics from Below: New Conceptual Interpretations" in Bompani and Frahm-Arp (eds), Development and Politics from Below, Exploring Religious Spaces in the African State, Palgrave-MacMillan, London

Bompani B. and Frahm-Arp M. (2010), "Reflection on Modernisation without Secularisation" in Bompani and Frahm-Arp (eds), Development and Politics from Below, Exploring Religious Spaces in the African State, Palgrave-MacMillan, London

Bompani B. (2010) Religion and Development from Below: Independent Christianity in South Africa in Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 40, n.3